In a head-scratching move this week, Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin finally released the “autopsy” of the party’s crushing defeat two years ago – an incomplete, ramshackle document that Martin himself had fought to hide from public view. The controversy surrounding the report’s production and chaotic release is yet more evidence of a party at war with itself and facing an internal identity crisis.
Following presidential election years, the losing party typically commissions an internal report to identify what went wrong and how to fix it. Democrats did so following their drubbing at the ballot box in 2024, and Martin pledged to release the final report in January 2025. But in December of that year he reversed course, claiming that release of the report could “distract” from the party’s midterm efforts.
The 180 sparked loud criticism from many Democrats, which continued to grow until Thursday, when Martin relented and released the unfinished report – with some commentary attached.
“This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC,” reads a disclaimer at the top of the document. “The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”
“I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin added in a statement. “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on it.”
The report drew immediate criticism from Democrats and mockery from Republicans. As Politico notes, in addition to containing factual errors and typos, “the incomplete report doesn’t mention a number of key issues that continue to dog the Democratic Party, including the issue of the war in Gaza.” Additionally, “in 192 pages, it sparsely touches on former President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out.”
“It sounds like we need a malpractice attorney because we couldn’t even do the autopsy correctly,” Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz told CNN. Longtime Obama advisor David Axelrod called the report “a needless waste of time.”
“We should take this autopsy with a massive grain of salt. Clearly, the people who put it together ran a highly ineffective, ill-researched process,” said Adrienne Elrod, a senior adviser on the Biden and then Harris campaigns.
The report is filled with dozens of annotations from the DNC, often accusing the authors of not providing “evidence” or “citations” for their claims – specifically claims related to Kamala Harris’s disastrous candidacy. The report specifically criticizes the Biden White House for failing to prepare Harris to run or providing support for her during the campaign.
It also critiques Harris for relying too much on “not Trump” branding and failing to establish a clear definition of who Harris was and what she stood for – more accusations that the DNC claims the report provides “no evidence” for. (As law professor Jonathan Turley points out, Harris’s defeat and failure to win even a single swing state should be evidence enough.)
The report could well be the final nail in the coffin of an already embattled Martin. Under his leadership, the DNC has fallen far behind the RNC in fundraising, with the RNC reporting $123.9 million cash-on-hand compared to a measly $14.4 million for the DNC. Many Democrats are likely asking themselves today what good it is to have a party chair that can’t even produce a passable report on an election that took place more than 18 months ago.
While Martin claims that he refused to release the autopsy because he didn’t want it to be a “distraction,” he has created an even bigger distraction by calling so much attention to the fact that he wouldn’t release it and then releasing it anyway while simultaneously denouncing it. Moreover, as one left-wing activist noted, the individual whom Martin hired to produce the “substandard” autopsy is still doing work for the DNC on different projects.
As much as Democrats may lambast the report, however, its central premise rings true – Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate, and Democrats are hopelessly out of step with everyday Americans. Voters didn’t like that Harris was forced onto the ballot through a blatantly un-democratic process, and they didn’t like Harris’s far-left positions on everything from transgender surgeries for minors to a full-on socialist takeover of the American healthcare system.
Ultimately, that’s why the autopsy is so damning for Democrats, as incomplete as it may be. Even after she led the party to its worst defeat in a generation, Kamala Harris is still the odds-on favorite to be the Democrat nominee in 2028. What’s worse, she’s apparently moving even further to the left, tacitly endorsing packing the Supreme Court, adding Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states, and abolishing the Electoral College.
As much as Democrats want to criticize the autopsy, they may nonetheless find that, if they continue down the path they are on, it could just as easily be recycled following another massacre at the ballot box two years from now.
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
As long as the Dem. party refuses to accept common sense and logic, (gender fluidity, men in women’s sports, electric military vehicles, CO2 is toxic, we can tax our way to prosperity, etc.), the more elections they may lose.
Kamala apparently has no grasp of the United States constitution if she thinks that she can “abolish the Electoral College”. To alter or eliminate this system entirely, a constitutional amendment would need to be passed. To pass a constitutional amendment, the proposal must clear two distinct stages: proposal and ratification.
Key Rules
Once again, Kamala has shown the American public that she is an IDIOT! Of course, the people who vote for her are also idiots, so they will believe her when she says she can do it.
The dummybrats cannot handle the truth, and following this report, they either label it trash or they blame other people (think DJT and constitutional conservatives). Sadly, there may not be a 2028 election for liberals to be concerned about if the Republicans don’t get off their a$$es and put together a positive campaign for the midterms.
I would not count on that , remember what Dementia Joe Biden said . The Democratic Party has put together the most extensive voter fraud organization in the History of American Politics .
When Alan Dershowitz, a lifelong Democrat, working for liberal policies his entire life (echoing Ronald Reagan) announces on his social media that he did not leave the Dem party, it left him, and then astoundingly says “every democrat should be voted out of office!” the dems ought to be able to figure out something is amiss.
Now all the left has is projection and lies as they insult their opponents, offer slogans but no solutions, criticize every constructive thing Trump and his excellent cabinet is achieving, and decide to link themselves up with anti semites and idiotic “green” goals. The left is unmindful of how China is polluting the world’s atmosphere even as it brags about its far reaching green goals being achieved. And in the meantime, in 2020 Trump left our atmosphere cleaner than almost any other country’s in the world but gets no credit for that.
Go Trump!
We need to stop the name-calling on both sides and get busy solving our nation’s rapidly expanding fix-it list. When we vote, we should be asking ourselves who is working on solving the real issues and who is playing the distract them game. The loudest voices on the Democrat side have one position: hate Trump, hate MAGA, hate right-wing conservatives, and block anything put forth by our current president. Everything has been blocked by Democrat Congressional members. Time for a change in leadership if this is all they have to offer us.
I saw two different Democrats [sane ones] who gave a quick five-point summary and it was spot on. As long as DIMMs push woke, trans, and socialist tripe they will not do much on the national level. I wish the sane [how many?] DIMMs on state and local level would vote these nut cases out and at least return to being pro-American! Truman JFK, LBJ, and even Billy J wouldn’t win a Democrat primary today.
Kamala, is still the favorite? Amazing. Of course the way she got th nod, and how Biden finally had lost his usefulness, its no wonder this party can only “hate Trump” as a platform.
I really do not believe this auto-pen pardoning of people who had not been charged with a crime, is in and of itself, not viable in a court of law. Presidents know this, but maybe Biden’s handlers did not. Biden only signed his family’s pardon, and only Hunter had been convicted of a crime. Just a thought, so his brothers may still be charged, IMO
maybe judges politicians should be prosecuted for the harm they cause say for instance the 18000 people that have been killed because Biden opened the borders and the people killed by illegal alien truck drivers and then maybe those politicians would stop breaking our laws
Whatever they call themselves, whatever we call them, democrat is not the correct term..
“The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions … ” It looks to me as if the “Demorat Stonewalling” virus has infected the internal workings of itself. LOL.
The “autopsy debacle” also proves that democrats still don’t get it. The things democrats support are things the voters don’t want.
‘Tis a shame there are SO many brainless, easily-led, young and ignorant Dumba$$ocrat voters ‘out there’. With no end in sight.
“War in Iran? Cuba? Doesn’t bother ME! I live with my parents! Wanna see my new phone? My Dad bought it for me yesterday…”
The real disaster of the 2024 election is the fact that Trump only cleared Harris by 2 million in the popular vote. Think about that. Now, think about again:
As dangerously unqualified Harris was, 75 million people still voted for her.
75 MILLION knuckle-dragging morons.
OUR COUNTRY IS SCREWED.
The Politician is the lowest form of Human Life on Earth , Democratic Politicians are even .lower than that .
& NO change coming visible seen
Democrats may lose?…….they WILL lose!! Those people do not see where they are going!
A properly done autopsy would result in too many questions being asked of party leadership about the dumb decisions that were made. Why did they try to cover up Joe Biden’s mental incapacity? It was plainly obvious, even if Democrats, including VP Harris, tried to tell us old Joe was as sharp as a tack. Why did they allow Biden to do a debate with Trump? They had to know it was a train wreck in the making. Was it to move him aside so that Harris could be foisted upon the party faithful who wouldn’t have voted for her in a primary? Why is the Party steadfastly on the wrong side of several 80/20 issues? A proper autopsy would have sounded like a story outline for a sequel to the movie “Dumb and Dumber.”
Sanctimony is a blind spot-and dems have it on full display.
It sounds like Martin was trying to say “don’t blame me for this train wreck”!
This report shows the democrats have no idea why they lost. While the reports shows their shortcomings of the candidates in the first place and no understanding what the electorate wanted in the second place. . Trump told the electorate what was needed because he knew what the country needed and the electorate wanted. Kameltoe was a bad VP and even a worse Candidate for president. She doesn’t have the brain capacity to have an original thought. She kept repeating the same word salad they had typed out for her. She was the border czar and then didn’t do the job. When asked why she never had been to the border she said she had never been to France either. What has that answer to do with the question asked? But the democrats kept pushing her candidacy to the tune of 2 billion dollars and lost their shirt and were even 20 million dollars in debt after the election.The dems had no policy and they ran two clowns for President and VP. They still haven’t learned their lesson. The dictatorial policies they put forth doesn’t resonate with the electorate. The Schumer and Pelosi old guard has to go. They want to hold on to their power forever but in this global world, the WEF with Obama created and are still working to make America a global country, doesn’t work the electorate they want sovereignty. Patriotism. Not communism, dictators like AOC et al. They have policy. They govern through the courts. We have a seoeration if justice, legislative and executive branches of government. The democrats are not governing in the legislature. They are obstructionists till they have the power back to destroy this country. By dispersing with the constitution the Supreme Court electoral college. Make every foreigner who just walked into this country a voter. That way the majority of American citizens will be voted down. By hook or by crook the democrats will wrest the power away from the republicans. Don’t let them.
Nonsense. The Democrats Never renominate losing Presidential candidates. She is a placeholder, nothing more. After the Midterms, they will assess where they are, and someone will emerge from a wide open nomination battle. The only thing I am sure of is it won’t be Kamala Harris.
Perhaps the Democrats should have commissioned Christopher Steele who wrote the universally discredited “Steele Dossier” to write the latest Democrat autopsy. Of course, there would not be a single confirmed fact in it anywhere… but it would have given the hopeless Democrats the verbosity that they want to hear!
No one in their Right Mind can stay in the Democrat Party having seen first hand the Fraud and Corruption throughout States ran by Democrats! You, yourself, would have to be Fraudulent and Corrupt, Moralless, etc. staying! Evil will never-ever Win in the end! JESUS CHRIST has seen to it! AMEN! I desire people, more and more, before this Election Cycle, wake up, get informed through personal research of Honest and Valued Resourced Information Outlets, to find the Factual Truth of Issues the USA is facing. You’re not going to find these Truth Based Facts in areas once held in high regard, like: ABC, CBS, NBC, MS Now, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, etc. because these Entities have an Agenda that is anti-Christ, anti-Truth, bias, etc. People must get out and do their due diligence in search for Truth so not to enter into League with Satan and his anti-Christ System in these Last Days/End Times via the likes of the Democrat Party!
Until the Democrats gets back to their basic oath to serve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America….they need to put the nation first and politics in the back. The Congress is elected to represent the Citizens (Legal) first and foremost and uphold the laws that they/the Party have voted for to be upheld and implemented.
I wonder if the Party/Union has lost their way in the darkness that they have plunged into the destruction of our Blessed Nation. Many men and women have fought for and died for our freedom; not to be CONTROLLED by a government entity!
They need to go back to their basics and REJECT a party that controls the Representatives and Senators as their voters hoped they would do the right and moral thing to do!
Let me know when they publish the actual autopsy of the Democrat party because it died. Other than that I don’t care about them. Whatever they are for I’m against whatever there against I’m for it’s pretty simple.
R’s shouldn’t crow. Despite Republican erstwhile accomplishments, Trump’s popularity numbers on EVERY major item are way under water. This is disastrous for the midterms. Lose in Nov and the Trump agenda is DOA. So, despite Dem strategic stupidity, the legion of media gaslit voters is their ace in the hole.
Hopefully the Dem’s will destroy themselves, then the Libertarians or Independents can assume the 2Nd party recognition.
A large reason the DNC has no $ is that Kamala Harris blew $1Billion on nothings including paying big buck to celebrities to show up for her, during her very short presidential run. No one is listing all the financial waste she created in her ridiculous bid for the WH nor the fact that big donors were so turned off by her and the campaign that they are not donating much these days. Probably it’s a wait and see. And the Dems better wake themselves up and start showing they are not the arrogant elitists and Communists they are currently bragging about, such as Lizzie Warren slobbering over the Nazi Platner and Sanders cozying up to AOC and friends who adore Commie Mamdani.
Biden didn’t decide to drop out of the 2024 race, he was forced out by his own party that realized he’d get whooped so badly that everyone would realize the 2024 race was rigged for him to win!
The Dems are losing because they embrace virtually every 80/20 freak show.
What did they expect? They listened to the left side of the party whose mission is to create chaos and strife and they did exactly that within their own party! Lack of common sense and understanding of the long held American ideals sunk this ship.
The first thing is the main thing, and the biggest reason why Harris was never going to win, or Biden for that matter:
The Biden/Harris presidency was an abject failure on the economy, foreign affairs and national affairs, not to mention how out of step they were on 80/20 issues with the American electorate.
There are a ton of other reasons, but that will do. It always does.
I hope the party of hate is devastated this next election. For their own good the socialist/democrats need to restructure and stop with the globalist agenda. The republicans also need to clean house and get their house in order.
The DemoKKKRATS don’t have a clue as to what the American People REALLY want. They DON’T want being “woke”, Socialisim, illegal invader immigrants, less Police, more drugs, more homeless, more “Anti-Trump” blather, a “modified” Constiution, men “becoming” Women and a “packed’ SCOTUS which is the “RATS” entire platform. More and more people are wiseing up and the polls show it.
Funny reading comments about the DEMS and this report, when FoxNews latest polling shows about Trump job approval rate: 61% disapproval versus 39% approval. I wonder where you people have been in the last one and half years?!